Elijah Hughes, a New Jersey–based real estate agent, is getting ready to put an offer down on a single-family, two-bedroom house in Clifton, N.J., for his client. But he’s not expecting it’ll win the bidding war, despite the offer being around $51,000 over asking. “It’s not even updated [and] needs a new kitchen,” Hughes told Fortune, adding later that the seller still “had 200 people at his open house.”
Hughes works primarily in Essex, Passaic, and Union counties, and occasionally in Hudson and Bergen counties, which are just outside of New York City. Each of those five counties experienced an increase in their average home value over the past year. Essex county’s average home value is up 5.1% over the last year, Passaic county’s is up 5%, Union county’s is up 3.8%, Hudson county’s is up 2.6%, and Bergen county’s is up 3.3% per Zillow. And, New Jersey’s average home value is up 5.9% over the past year. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s average home value is down 11.8% over the same period.
